Orlando and Disney's Love Affair

Orlando was the county seat of Orange County, but it wasn't citrus groves that prompted Disney's secret aerial reconnaissance. During his flyover, he focused on a wasteland southwest of Orlando where alligators outnumbered people. Porous limestone underlay the vegetal muck. What passed for dry land was speckled with shallow, brown-watered catchments, some the size of station wagons, others the size of suburbs.

Over the next two years, with the collusion of Orlando's top leaders, Disney secretly acquired more than 25,000 acres (10,000 hectares). People were glad to sell dirt cheap. This sludgy terrain was useless for agriculture. Who would want to vacation in such a place? Disney was certain most Americans would, once he worked his marketing magic on them. By the 1960s, all over America, suburbs were replacing old neighborhoods. Malls were driving Main Street out of business. There was hardly a new ranch home or split-level that didn't have a TV antenna on the roof. Disney realized that in the coming decades shows like The Mickey Mouse Club, not climate and geology, would determine what the majority of Americans would consider a safe and enjoyable place to take a family vacation. That day, flying over central Florida, Disney decided that he, not reality, would define what constituted the Magic Kingdom in the minds and spending habits of millions of Americans in the years to come.

The interstate highway system, started by the Eisenhower Administration as part of the Cold War defense effort against communism, was already crisscrossing America. Disney chose Orlando because it was at the confluence of two of the most important of these new thoroughfares, what today are Interstate 4 and Florida's Turnpike. There was also a deeply personal reason he located Disney World there—the same one that still lures people to Orlando today. In Florida's boggy, buggy, empty midsection, Walt Disney perceived a second chance.

His original theme park—Disneyland, in southern California—covered fewer than 300 acres (120 hectares). It soon was ringed with the suburban blight that its success inevitably attracted—motels, strip malls, copycat amusement parks. Disney never forgave himself for not making Disneyland big enough, but in Florida he hoped to rectify that mistake. He set out to create an Adventureland where nothing was left to chance. Arriving visitors would not be permitted to choose their own parking spaces; smiling Disney characters would do that for them. In this new, bigger, better Magic Kingdom, water could not be the tannic brown common in central Florida. So Bay Lake was drained, the sludge removed, and clear water pumped into the resulting lagoon. Even dry land would be turned into another Disney illusion: As you traverse the theme park, you are actually walking on the roof of an immense, underground control building from which the operation is run, staffed, and supplied.

Disney's new empire in central Florida would be marketed as Disney World. Its official name was, and remains, the Reedy Creek Improvement District. Thanks to a sweetheart deal with the state legislature, the lands Disney purchased were detached from the rest of Florida to form a Magic Kingdom, above and outside the law. Even now, Disney World's rides are exempt from state safety inspections. Democratic process is excluded, too. Power remains in the hands of a board of supervisors composed of Disney allies.

Mike - the MBA blogger

Imran Khan - the Future of Pakistan

Another nice video, must see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9fW9jPnjgE

Mike - the MBA blogger

China vs India

In an article published in 2003 called “Can India overtake China?” Tarun Khanna of Harvard Business School and Steve Hamm argued that India’s domestic corporate sector – strengthened by the country’s rule of law, its democratic processes and relatively healthy financial system – was a source of substantial competitive advantage over China. At that time, the notion that India might be more competitive than China was laughed at. Few years later, India appears to have permanently broken out of its leisurely “Hindu rate of growth”– an annual gross domestic product increase of around 2 to 3 per cent – and its performance is beginning to approach the east Asian level. From April to June 2005, India’s GDP grew at 8.1 per cent, compared with 7.6 per cent in the same period the year before. More impressively, India is achieving this result with just half of China’s level of domestic investment in new factories and equipment, and only 10 per cent of China’s foreign direct investment. While China’s GDP growth in the last two years remained high, in 2003 and 2004 it was investing close to 50 per cent of its GDP in domestic plant and equipment – roughly equivalent to India’s entire GDP. That is higher than any other country, exceeding even China’s own exalted levels in the era of central planning. The evidence is very clear: China’s growth stems from massive accumulation of resources, while India’s growth comes from increasing efficiency.

Today as the world has gone into an economic crisis, India's Inflation which was a 8.5% a month ago, has slipped to 6.5% and the verdict is it might soon reach the controlled zone of 4 and less. When that happens, the world will know that India's potential in comparison to China is manifold. But what is stopping India from acheiving its potential. Strangely, Democracy! Is this good for the country? Strangely again, Yes! Why? Read on! India is a highly attractive destination for FDI but has it aggressively taken the direction as China has- No! The reason is, India is weary of the large number of its businesses which are independent entrepreneurial ventures. A deal between WalMart and Bharti to open retail shops was stalled by the Congress, as it feared it would flood the market and impede the growth of the Indian plaeyrs in the retail market. The advantage, the money is generated by Indians for India. What's different about this model? If one takes a closer look at China, we know why India is truly the country to look out for, it is steadily building a strong foundation. China has become the home for Manufacturers around the world! Why? It offers cheap labor, good infrastructure (aided by Chinese Government) and cheap resources. And "Made in China" labels is omnipresent. But "Made in China" is not necessarily "Made by China". If India needs to compete and win China, it has to improve its Infrastructure. An economic litmus test is not whether a country can attract a lot of FDI but whether it has a business environment that nurtures entrepreneurship, supports healthy competition and is relatively free of heavy handed political intervention. In this regard, India has done a better job than China. From India emerged a group of world-class companies ranging from Infosys in software, Ranbaxy in pharmaceuticals, Bajaj Auto in automobile components and Mahindra in car assembly. This did not happen by accident.The day is not long, when MNCs find an alternative to China. When that happens, China will be drained by much of its capital and its market, left to chinese players, will get very incompetent. This situation is never bound to happen in India. Every Industry, has one or more Indian player in the market. Thus India is building its economy towards becoming a self-sustaining growing economy whereas China is still busy, improving its foreign reserves and comfortable with the headstart it has over other economies.  

Unless China embarks on bold institutional reforms, India may very well outperform it in the next 20 years. But, hopefully, the biggest beneficiary of the rise of India will be China itself. It will be forced to examine the imperfections of its own economic model and to abandon its sense of complacency acquired in the 1990s. China was light years ahead of India in economic liberalisation in the 1980s. Today it lags behind in critical aspects, such as reform that would permit more foreign investment and domestic private entry in the financial sector. The time to act is now.

Mike - the MBA blogger